Ali Dizaei Discipline Charges Dropped 'Due To Politics'

Tue, 09 February 2010 Courtesy of: The Guardian

Disciplinary charges against Ali Dizaei, the Scotland Yard commander convicted of falsely arresting and attempting to frame a man in a dispute over money, could have been proved in the past but were dropped because politicians were wary of offending the black police association, a former Met deputy commissioner has said.

Brian Paddick, who was the Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor in 2008, said Dizaei's reinstatement after being acquitted in 2003 of charges including misconduct in public office was "politically driven". The case had prompted a boycott by the Met of its own ethnic minority officers.

"He was given compensation, he was welcomed back to the Met, he was even allowed to write a book about the way he was mistreated by Metropolitan police. I think that may have been a settlement driven by politics, driven by the Home Office who wanted to keep the black police association on side," Paddick told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

“"Black people [in the Met] are still disproportionately disciplined"”

"All formal disciplinary procedures against him were dropped and my understanding is that it might have been the case that some of those disciplinary charges against him could have been proven. And I think all of that was politically driven."

Dizaei, 47, was an outspoken critic of the police on race, leader of the National Black Police Association, and a key figure in a race row that erupted at the top of Scotland Yard in the summer of 2008.

Paddick said that in the aftermath of Dizaei's conviction it was time for the Metropolitan Black Police Association (MBPA) to reform, with less "grandstanding in front of the microphone".

"I think the lesson to be learnt here for the black police association is this aggressive, confrontational approach that Ali Dizaei took and Tariq Ghaffur, the most senior Asian officer to serve in the police service [who claimed discrimination against the Met before dropping the claim after settling out of court] – that sort of approach is probably not the best way to achieve change," he said.

Dizaei's conviction had "damaged the black police association and therefore damaged police community relations". But Paddick said there was still a definite need for a black police association with "plenty of evidence to suggest that black officers face a difficult time in the Met".

"The black police association need to employ the facts, lose the emotion, concentrate on the facts and by doing that I think they will begin to move the police service," he said.

Alfred John, the chairman of the MBPA, agreed on the Today programme that the association had been damaged. But he insisted there was "without a doubt" still institutional racism in the force, as identified in the 1999 MacPherson report into the aftermath of the botched investigation into the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

"Black people [in the Met] are still disproportionately disciplined, are still disproportionately asked to resign and there's still a lack of progress for black people," he said.

John said the MBPA supported the process which allowed Dizaei to be prosecuted. But he added: "The case cost more than a murder case and, if you remember, one of the reasons for the boycott from the black police association was the disproportionate pursuit of black people."